Sleep Wars continued

Warning: This post contains potentially contentious political information.

There have been recent news articles about the legality of the CIA's use of torture when interrogating prisoners as part of the war on terror. One of the torture methods being discussed is sleep deprivation.

This household has first hand experience in 'sleep torture'. The names of three members of the axis of evil are well known: Simon, Ben and Ella. The coalition of the exhausted -- Sarah and Michael -- have been waging a long war for a sleep past 6:00am.

After a long campaign Simon has finally been subdued and now regularly sleeps past 6:30. The junior member of the trio, Ella, remains a mystery but now sleeps in until 5:30am on a good day. This brings us to Ben. Sleep deprivation is the main tactic/weapon being used by both parties in this bitter struggle. Ben has also brought a fair degree of screaming and shouting to the battle.

For the last few weeks Ben has been waking up between 4:30 -- 5:30am, most commonly at 4:30am. At first a number of peaceful solutions were suggested by the concerned UG (United Grandparents ) including cohabitation with his brother and putting him into a big bed. None of these had any impact.

As exhausted parents we have decided to fight fire with fire. Ben used to sleep for at least 2 hours each afternoon -- we needed the break as well. However, in the end we have been limiting Ben's sleep to 1 hour a day and drugging him up (he does have a cough) at night. There has also been a concerted effort to run him ragged in the afternoon. Results so far -- exhausted child. He fell asleep on the couch at 11:40am the other morning. And exhausted parents. He still wakes up before 5am. It means we need to go to bed around 9am. Not much good for doing anything at night.

Our next great hope -- Daylight Savings. At least it will be 5:30am instead of 4:30am